


Gone Astray in Dark Old Places

by apfelgranate



Series: Line of Durin Bingo Card Shenanigans [3]
Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dry Humping, Everybody Lives, F/M, Hate Sex, Post BoFA, Thorin and Tauriel need to have a conversation about explicit consent, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:46:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apfelgranate/pseuds/apfelgranate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin gets lost in the winding halls of Erebor one evening. He's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone Astray in Dark Old Places

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of my 'line of durin bingo card' verse, aka Tauriel fucks her way through the line of Durin. You can find the rest on my tumblr: http://apfelgranate.tumblr.com/tagged/bingo+card+shenanigans
> 
> It was also supposed to be just 500 words of dry-humping semi-hatesex, but it got out of control very quickly. Go me.

He has been wandering for quite a while, lost in his musings, when the thought that he might be _truly_ lost creeps up on Thorin. The fork of corridors at which he is standing is utterly unfamiliar to him, long halls of stone to which a smell of decay still clings, a certain chill in the air and walls the fires burning tirelessly in the living quarters have not driven away. Dim light filters down from thin shafts dug through the rock to the surface. He turns, full circle, but nothing tugs at his memory.

 _Gone astray in your own kingdom_ , Thorin thinks with a sigh. _A fine king you are, Oakenshield_.

Judging by the rock's structure and colour, he has not descended very deep into the mountain; he is most likely still in the layer that houses the royal family's chambers. He chooses to retrace his steps, as much as he remembers them, and walks back into the corridor whence he came.

Several minutes later his surroundings have not changed much, the halls quiet and still very obviously uninhabited, but the air seems warmer, the light hued ruddy by distant flames. The soft scuffing of his shoes on the floor and his breaths are the only sounds to disrupt the silence, so when he rounds a corner and nearly bumps into a tall frame, he stumbles backwards in surprise.

It is an elf's frame, and Thorin recognizes her dark hair, her dark skin. Tauriel seems no less surprised than him, but she smiles slightly and sketches a bow after she has taken a step back.

"Your Highness," she says, "I must confess I've gotten lost; I'm afraid I'm more susceptible to dwarvish wine than I thought. Would you mind showing me the way?"

She levels an expectant look at him and Thorin's mouth opens before he remembers that he is in the same predicament; he grits his teeth before the admission can escape. The elf frowns as he struggles for words, when suddenly her lips curve into a real smile, unhindered by her teeth digging into her lower lip.

"Truly," she murmurs in an incredulous tone, "a king lost in his own kingdom?"

Thorin growls. "Keep your mockery to yourself." Her smile turns mask-like and when she says, "My deepest apologies, your Highness," the words are positively dripping with derisive politeness.

He swallows a snarl and turns away, intent to not let him be angered further. The elf keeps up easily with him as he starts to walk down the corridor again, her gait easy and loose. It grates at him, the way she keeps glancing down at him out of the corners of her eyes, the way her breath amplifies the absence of other sounds, bloating the silence between them until it becomes oppressive.

"How did you even find yourself here?" he mutters into his beard, only half expecting an answer. "Shouldn't you be guarding the princeling?"

"Legolas is no child," she replies, "and we are the honoured guests of an allied host, are we not? What danger poses itself here?" She is smirking; he knows before he even stops to look at her, her eyebrows raised as she regards him, daring him to contradict her. He does not huff in frustration, choking it instead to a small sharp breath, and returns her gaze coolly.

They get caught like that for a moment, staring at each other, until Thorin notices the way her hair seems a lot less tidily braided than it was at dinner, loose strands framing her face, and suddenly his eyes… flit. The sheen of sweat in the hollow of her throat, the skewed hem of her dress. The sloppily tied boots, the lowest clasp of her corset, undone. The strand of golden hair caught in the fabric at her shoulder…

Dis had said something to him, days ago, when he had been grumbling about the elves, their unreadable faces, their twisting words and their elvishness in general.

"You should try to find more common ground with them. Kili's been getting along splendidly with Lady Tauriel; as archer to archer," she had said; adding, "Fili, too, actually," in thoughtful tones.

"Most elves are archers," Thorin had replied dismissively. Dis had shrugged, a small grin dimpling her whiskered cheeks.

"Well, maybe his is not the right approach either. I think he's taken a shine to her." He had not dignified that particular comment with an answer, thinking his sister merely meant to tease him out of his brooding mood. But now—now he looks at Tauriel and sees someone who has had quite a tumble in the sheets; and certainly no elvish sheets, or she would not have found her way to this part of the mountain.

"What were you doing," Thorin bites out, voice low. Her eyes widen slightly, but she only leans back against the stone wall, crossing her arms and legs with deceptive aplomb. There is tension in her limbs, though whether the intent is fight or flight he cannot tell.

"It's a mercy your nephews possess more tact in diplomatic matters than you do," she says calmly, and her gaze travels the length of his body with an unsettling intensity as she does so. He shivers under the scrutiny but manages to hide it.

"What were you _doing_ ," he repeats, and this time his voice carries clear threat in the words. Tauriel appears unfazed.

"I was bedding the princes."

Thorin is momentarily struck dumb by her bluntness, though not for long. "What gives you the damn _right_ —"

"They did. Quite eagerly, even," she cuts in, raising her eyebrows again in that absolutely infuriating way of hers that he is quickly coming to despise. His hands curl into fists at his sides, fingernails biting into the meat of his palms.

"You dare to come into our home, sleep in our halls and eat our food and then have the _gall_ to spit on our hospitality like that!"

"I'm not spitting on your hospitality," Tauriel hisses, shoving away from the wall, and Thorin is abruptly reminded of the fact that she is a good two and a half feet taller than him. "If you want to make it your business whom your sister sons invite into their bed, you best take it up with them. I don't owe you my obedience."

"What about _your_ king? Do you think he'd approve of _this_?" He spits the last word like a slur, and watches with dark satisfaction as her face falls, although almost instantly anger twists her features into hard edges and she looms over him, all seven feet of her. It makes gooseflesh rise on his arms, his back, a bone-deep shiver chasing after and Thorin is shaken by the uncertainty of its cause.

"You'd risk the peace just to bring this affair to an end?" she asks quietly. "I hadn't thought you to be so recklessly selfish."

Thorin has been called reckless before, many times. Foolish, even. But selfish—that one gets caught in his skin and burrows deep.

"I'm not the one who—" his voice catches, his throat dry, "who lies with _princes_ without regard for the consequences."

"Without regard," Tauriel echoes tonelessly. "You didn't care for the consequences when you dragged them into a _war_ , did you," she says, stepping closer, wrath evident in the coiled tension of her every movement, but Thorin refuses to retreat or be cowed by her glare.

"They fought willingly."

"Willingly, indeed. Just as they came to me." Her breath comes fast and flat and he hates how much it sounds like his own.

"Don't you dare compare their loyalty for their king to such… defilement." Tauriel laughs; it is a hollow, ugly sound, echoing off of the walls. His insides writhe with it. She looks at him and her face is unreadable, unexpectedly elvish in its sudden blankness.

"I should have left you to rot in the dirt, back then," she mutters, her voice as devoid of emotion as her face.

"What," Thorin breathes. She makes the picture of an elf in that moment, so much alike to the image of elves he carries in his head; it chills him to realise that he scarcely recognises her.

"Your sister didn't tell you?" He shakes his head, unbowed but bereft of words under her gaze, her eyes dark as pitch.

"In the Battle of Five Armies, I'm the one who carried you from the field of battle, after you had fallen."

"What—why would you…"

"Because Dis had saved my life that day, and I owed her a life in return." She reaches out and her fingertips alight on the curve of Thorin's cheek, a touch well nigh too soft to deserve the name, yet his blood sings with its warmth.

"She could not carry the three of you at once, and on that day her sons were far dearer to her than her brother, or her king. I didn't think you could possibly survive, you bled so much…" Her hand drifts lower, to his neck, and something in Thorin's chest cracks beyond hope of salvaging.

"Don't touch me," he whispers and the first word is almost lost in his mouth, half-swallowed by the terrified spark now flickering in his chest. Her hand falls from his neck and his breath hitches desperately.

Something changes in Tauriel's face then, a sharpness sliding into her features that has nothing to do with anger. Heat banks up in her eyes; she smiles, a slow spread of teeth like a knife drawn from its sheath, and as she leans forward, Thorin feels that knife sinking into his chest and tearing a line of fire down to his core.

"Is that the bone of it, then," she whispers. "The king wants a taste of defilement for himself?"

There are words— _no, no he does not, how_ dare _she_ —but they die painfully in his throat.

She is so, so close, radiating heat like a furnace, she smells of pleasure-stained sheets and the kind of oil not used for cooking, her breath a ghostly touch upon Thorin's face and he knows all too well what she has been doing; and wishes fervently he did not, wishes he could drown himself in the illusion that this is a weakness of which only he is guilty.

It has been so long and the taste of the dinner's ale is still heavy on his tongue—come morning, that is what he will tell himself, when he finds finger-shaped bruises on his thighs and buttocks, an unassuming ache deep in his muscles, and his cock still sore—these are the only reasons he gives in to the urge prickling under his skin, these are the only reasons he grabs her hair and crashes his mouth against hers. Tauriel lets out a noise of surprise and for a moment he thinks she will shove him away, prays for it, but she does not; instead she catches him, seizes him, and he is lost.

It is barely a kiss. It is vicious, helpless greed made teeth and lips, given breath by something Thorin does not dare to examine. Tauriel's blood is on his tongue and the skin of his lips splits under her insistence. They grab at each other, stumbling, legs a hopeless tangle as her back hits the stone wall and she drags him down—he does not go willingly, his knees do not weaken, they do not—until their bodies are pressed together like grindstones, and just as chafing.

Her hands find a new hold and her touch burns him, through jerkin and tunic, her body seemingly made of heat, like obsidian lain in the sun for hours. Her grip suddenly becomes bruise-tight, on his hip and the back of his thigh, and she hauls him closer than he thought possible, their thighs interlocked and his hardness galling against her hipbone while the heat of her sex sears his thigh.

His breath is reduced to a stutter in his chest and their kiss that is not a kiss loses all semblance of touch, becomes a sharing of wet air as they rock against each other. Thorin's hands finally find purchase Tauriel's shoulders, enough to move his body to meet hers. Her breathing goes ragged, her mouth smearing wet and hot along his jaw, scalding the line of his throat with the touch of her tongue and if Thorin had any breath left himself he might feel smug about that—but he does not, feeling opened up and laid bare and defenceless instead by the pleasure taking root in his belly. It digs deep as it unfurls, almost painful in its rampant growth.

Tauriel makes a noise that seems to rise out of the mountain itself and move through her body, climbing out of her throat like a living thing and she shudders violently with it, and goes still. The sound of her panting echoes in the corridor, suddenly deafening, like the roar of his blood in Thorin's ears as he feels himself dangle on the edge of his precipice, suspended but not yet falling. He does not whimper, but it is a wounded, pleading noise nonetheless which wriggles out between his teeth.

"Thorin," she grates out, his name half a curse in her mouth, sets her teeth to his lips again; yet there is no bite this time but a gentle nudge—he does not know what else to call it, unsure if anything but pain appears a gentleness to him in this moment—that eases into a lick, a nuzzle, as she grips him and rolls his hips against hers.

He bruises himself on the bone of her hip, breathing as if struck, and barely manages to hold on as she brings him to his ruin; he is shattered between the hammer and anvil that are the sure grasp of her hands, the warm length of her thigh, the caress of her mouth.

\--o--

After an age, it seems, when the rabid drumbeat of Thorin's heart has calmed and his fingers finally obey him in unclenching, he lets go of Tauriel and struggles to his feet on tremor-shaken legs. There is no will to fight left in him, but flight is not an option; they are still lost in the bowels of Erebor, and he could not shake Tauriel from his trail even if he tried.

She rises as well, stiffly, rubbing at her legs once she stands, and sickening warmth unfurls in Thorin's belly. He watches her like prey struck motionless by the sight of its hunter: the roll of her shoulders in their sockets, joints cracking, and her hands smoothing over her front to rid her dress of wrinkles. He expected something more removed, unperturbed by their consorting, something more like the alien grace usually exhibited by her people.

This… this is proof of guilt.

He does not speak. Tauriel follows him on silent feet as he journeys down corridors, past empty halls and chambers until they reach a torch-lit hallway that Thorin recognises. He tells her the way to the guests' chambers in as few words as possible, uncomfortably aware of the way his trousers stick to his crotch. He does not wonder if she experiences a similar discomfort.

They are alone. Tauriel visibly hesitates, and although he knows what will happen, Thorin still flinches when her hand settles on the back of his neck, her fingers catching in his hair. A shudder that is all cold dread flows over his body, bone-deep and impossible to hide.

Tauriel's hand drops as if stung and the weakest part of him wishes she would kiss him so he would not have to look into her eyes.

"I shall see you in the morning, I expect," she says, quietly, formally, and leaves. Thorin does not watch her departure but he does worry his lower lip with his teeth until the tear in them brought about by Tauriel splits open again—worries it until it _stings_.


End file.
